The Edge

It was an ordinary morning for most people. Perhaps a little spicy for some who were at the festival the night before. A mix of excitement and pleasure rippled through the air. For me, though, it was different. I was nervous. Something significant was about to happen.

This wasn’t my first time standing in front of a crowd to speak, but this time, I was determined. Determined to find my edge, to give voice to something buried deep within me. I knew I could fail. My voice could freeze, just as it had the day I stood in my primary school classroom, many years ago.

I remember it vividly. Our big class was being split into two. The teacher told me I was to join the other class—the less appealing one. It meant being separated from the friends I’d carefully cultivated. But there was a way out. The teacher said, “Cry. Cry and ask to stay here.”

I thought, That’s easy. I cry, and I stay.

But when the moment came, I couldn’t. My voice wouldn’t come out. I closed my eyes, willing the tears to flow. I tried to think of everything sad—the fear-filled stories I’d grown up with. Like the one about the three sisters, my mum pointed to on the way to the graveyard. “They went against their mother,” she said, “and they turned into stone.”

Fear was woven into my upbringing. Fear of doing the wrong thing. Fear of being punished by God. Fear of public shame.

Time was ticking. My name was called. I joined the group in front of the whiteboard—the ones being sent to the dark, neglected classroom. The one with the most clever student in the school, “Super Brain,” they called him. A boy who could already read and write, the son of two teachers.

I could feel my teacher watching me, silently urging me: Come on now.

But no tears came. No voice.

When I went home, I told my mum with grief “I cried and cried, but no one heard me.”

And in a way, it was true. For many years of my life, I cried and screamed, but no one heard me. The silence on the outside was deafening, while inside me, volcanoes erupted. 

It was invisible.

But today, that would change.

Just before my talk, my mind went completely blank. My colleague, who was sharing the stage with me, noticed my nerves. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Just trust. Turn inward, and let it out.” Or at least, that’s what I heard.

I spoke to the soundman. I told him my intention. We made a plan.

And then, in what felt like the blink of an eye, I was on the stage.

It was full of familiar faces—loving, sweet people with whom I’d shared something extraordinary in the valley of Embercombe.

I began to speak.

The words tumbled out, not from my mind, but from somewhere deep in my body. I could feel them. They were my story, my heart. I was pouring out something buried for so long.

Then, I paused.

I locked eyes with the sound man, who gave me a nod of encouragement.

And I invited the audience to listen. To really listen.

Then

I howled.

I howled.

And I howled.

I howled for all my grandmothers, whose voices had been buried for generations upon generations. I howled for the last predator that walked on those Isles, silenced and forgotten. 

There and then, I made a pledge: with that howl, I would be their voice. I would free my own voice. I would speak the unspoken.